uses the github release api to upload files

To use the plugin you need to configure it in your pom.xml like so

<plugin>
    <groupId>de.jutzig</groupId>
    <artifactId>github-release-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.0</version>
    <configuration>
        <description>Description of your release</description>
        <releaseName>1.0 Final</releaseName>
        <tag>${project.version}</tag>
        
        <!-- If your project has additional artifacts, such as ones produced by
             the maven-assembly-plugin, you can define the following
             (requires version 1.1.1 of the plugin or higher): -->
        <fileSets>
            <fileSet>
                <directory>${project.build.directory}</directory>
                <includes>
                    <include>${project.artifactId}*.tar.gz</include>
                    <include>${project.artifactId}*.zip</include>
                </includes>
            </fileSet>
        </fileSets>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Unless otherwise specified, the plugin will upload the main artifact of your project and take the github repository url from the <scm> section.

By default, the plugin will look for your github credentials in your maven settings.xml. Credentials can be privated as an API token, or username and password. Example

<servers>
    <server>
        <id>github</id>
        <privateKey>API_TOKEN</privateKey>
        <username>GITHUB_USERNAME</username>
        <password>GITHUB_PASSWORD</password>
    </server>
</servers>

These credentials can be overridden by setting username and password as system properties.

Additional Parameters:

• -Dgithub.draft=true creates the release in draft state
• -Dgithub.commitish=release/1.0.0 allows to specify a commitsh
• -Dgithub.apitoken=API_TOKEN allows to set github api token instead of providing it in settings.xml
• -Dgithub.username=GITHUB_USERNAME allows to set github username instead of providing it in settings.xml
• -Dgithub.password=GITHUB_PASSWORD allows to set github password instead of providing it in settings.xml

The plugin is available on Maven central

The easiest way of getting a good release description (aka release notes or changelog) is to defer its generation to the GitHub. So if you completely leave out the <description> configuration parameter, then GitHub will generate a meaningful description for you. Otherwise, if description is supplied, it will be prepended to one generated by GitHub.

Below is an example of how the auto-generated release notes by GitHub could look like:

You can read how to customize release notes format in GitHub documentation.

The endpoint for GitHub API is inferred from <scm> connection string. When missing, it by default would use the public endpoint at https://api.github.com. If you want to upload to a GitHub enterprise instance, then a respective <scm> connection string must be specified.